Guest essay: Equipping youth for the workforce

8:12 PM,
Apr. 19, 2013

Zarria Williams, right, 14, and her schoolmate Sakoi Bowman, 13, left, put together puzzle pieces as part of the orientation day activities for the 88 Career and Mentoring Charter School students last August.

Written by

Dennis P. Francione
Guest essayist

The American education system has little time left to save its youth or to offer them any hope for a promising future. America's economy is currently posing unprecedented challenges, and the employment outlook nationwide is bleak. What is more distressing is that America's secondary students are not adequately prepared to enter what has become a high-tech and highly skilled workforce.

Rochester Career Mentoring Charter School, which opened its doors to 80 ninth-grade students for the first time this year, is addressing these issues by changing the educational paradigm.